Desert Journey – Day 16

There have been amazing graces from the journey thus far, for which I am grateful. The trek has me a bit weary this morning. The early mornings are a bit of a sacrifice. I won’t lie.

Yesterday brought a readiness to get up from the well and keep moving. Today I am content to sit.  I am reminded that the work of the heart is never done. I suppose if it were, sanctification and our road to holiness would cease. At World Youth Day in 2002, Pope John Paul II said, “just as salt gives flavor to food and light illumines the darkness, so too holiness gives full meaning to life and makes it reflect God’s glory.”

What does it really look like to reflect God’s glory? Jesus and I continue sitting, leaning against the well. I am tired this morning Jesus and am not sure I can think on this level. He says, it is through your weakness that I am displayed. I am not certain I really get the fullness of this, to be honest. I know the scripture, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.” I understand that it is your strength that should be displayed through me. But what does that really look like? What is the internal switch that occurs so that your strength is always the driving force, Lord? My mind wants to interject the things I could do to bring this about, but my heart knows differently. It is not a doing, it is a being.

I am reminded of a song I heard many years ago by Tom Booth called, The Fragrance Prayer. One of the verses says:

“Dear Jesus, flood my soul with your spirit and your love. Penetrate and possess my being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of you.”

I hear Jesus say, reflecting God’s glory and radiance is not an action, it is a state of being. That is holiness, the process by which we reflect this state of being. I lean my head back and close my eyes. Jesus, can we just sit here today? I have much to ponder…